If you look at the natural world, really look at it, it's always magical.

I had a short story collection come out in 2006, and then I couldn't work on large projects for a long time because I was finishing my doctoral degree.

Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge.

When we tell stories about things that are important - love, fear, beauty - we change the way people think about the world. Writers are, or should be, truth-tellers even when the stories themselves are fantasy.

Understanding what is going on in the world today inspires me in a negative sense because there's so much about it that I don't like - political stupidity, environmental degradation, etc. And that makes me want to change it, to make a difference in the world.

I'm working on a poetry collection for Papaveria Press . It fills me with trepidation - poetry is something I'm much more self-conscious about than prose.

If you believe you have a voice and something to say, chances are you do, and the world needs you to do whatever you're drawn to do. So you should do it.